Documents, such as books, magazines, etc., are increasingly being distributed in an electronic manner. For example, books distributed electronically are commonly referred to as electronic books. The terminology electronic document is used herein to refer to any type of document that is stored and/or distributed in an electronic manner. Such so-called electronic documents can be viewed on general-purpose desktop and laptop computers, as well as other devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDA's), palmtop computers, hand-held computers, set-top boxes for television sets, etc. Furthermore, one type of device on which electronic documents can be viewed is referred to as an electronic book device, which is a specialized device designed for the reading of electronic documents.
Especially for electronic book devices, electronic documents typically are paginated statically, specifically for a particular device. This means, however, that the electronic documents are not readily adaptable to other devices, or future devices. That is, static pagination ignores the very large installed base of desktop and laptop computers. Although liquid crystal displays (LCD's) are improving in quality and decreasing in price, they are still the most expensive component in a laptop computer currently, so a specialized reader device based on these components will remain expensive, at least for a while. Furthermore, the best LCD available currently is at best only merely adequate to display a page originally formatted for paper distribution. Thus, a distribution format that is optimized for a fixed-size display is disadvantageous, since display technologies are evolving rapidly.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.